{"id":1817,"date":"2017-11-22T12:23:51","date_gmt":"2017-11-22T12:23:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=1817"},"modified":"2017-11-22T12:24:57","modified_gmt":"2017-11-22T12:24:57","slug":"archive-spotlight-the-royal-irish-academy-and-global-connections-in-martha-wilmots-russian-journals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=1817","title":{"rendered":"Archive Spotlight: The Royal Irish Academy and Global Connections in Martha Wilmot\u2019s Russian Journals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today we welcome Dr Pamela Buck<\/a> to the BARS blog. Pamela is an Associate Professor of English at Sacred Heart University. Her research focuses on British women writers and material culture during the French Revolution and Napoleonic period.\u00a0 She is currently working on a book project concerning the souvenir as an object of political and cultural exchange in Romantic women\u2019s travel writing. Here she tells us about her research <\/em>at the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Global Connections in Martha Wilmot\u2019s Russian Journals<\/strong><\/p>\n

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In July 2016, I traveled to Dublin, Ireland to examine the works of Martha Wilmot (1775-1873) in the Wilmot-Dashkova Collection at the library of the Royal Irish Academy.[1]\u00a0 Wilmot was an Anglo-Irish writer from a well-connected, wealthy family in County Cork.\u00a0 In 1803, she traveled to Russia after receiving an invitation from Princess Ekaterina Dashkova, who met Wilmot\u2019s father while on a tour of Ireland in 1779-1780.\u00a0 One of the foremost women of the Russian Enlightenment, Princess Dashkova was instrumental in the coup that had brought Catherine the Great to power.\u00a0 During Wilmot\u2019s five years in Russia, an intense friendship formed between the two women, and Dashkova often referred to herself as Wilmot\u2019s \u201cRussian mother.\u201d\u00a0 Wilmot spent her time observing society at the royal courts in St. Petersburg and Moscow as well as at the Princess\u2019 country estate.\u00a0 She also kept detailed journals and letters of her stay that provide a fascinating look at Russian customs and political life.<\/p>\n

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Portrait of Martha Wilmot (The Russian Journals of Martha and Catherine Wilmot. Edited by Edith Londonderry and H. M. Hyde. London: Macmillan, 1934)<\/p><\/div>\n

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Today, about half of Wilmot\u2019s letters and journals exist in print.[2]\u00a0 In previous research on her published work, I note that she collects a multitude of objects on her journey, including Dashkova\u2019s memoirs, which she published in 1840, a fan belonging to Catherine the Great, snuffboxes, diamonds, imperial portraits, and court costumes.[3]\u00a0 I argue that she circulates these objects to strengthen Britain\u2019s understanding of Russia and encourage a possible alliance against Napoleon, whose growing empire threatened to subsume Europe.\u00a0 The goal of my archival project was to learn how Wilmot\u2019s unpublished writing might further document the circulation of material objects between Britain and Russia and show her participation in the emerging global networks of her time.<\/p>\n

With the generous help of Assistant Librarian Sophie Evans, I examined three collections of Wilmot\u2019s papers: the six notebooks that comprise the journal of her stay (12 L 17-22), her letters to Ireland (12 L 24), and letters written with her sister Catherine, who visited from 1805-1807 (12 L 29). The manuscripts, which are often silk or clothbound, tied with ribbons, and illustrated with sketches and translations of Russian poems and songs, indicate that she considered them lasting keepsakes and that she hoped they would give her readers a more vivid sense of this relatively unknown culture.\u00a0 Interestingly, manuscript 12 L 24 consists largely of copies of her work made by her mother, suggesting that it was widely circulated and popular amongst family and friends. \u00a0The parts most frequently copied, and likely considered the most engaging or important, were her discussions of the Princess\u2019 lavish gifts, the threat posed by Napoleon\u2019s empire, and Russia\u2019s relations with the East.<\/p>\n

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Silk envelope (By permission of the Royal Irish Academy \u00a9 RIA)<\/p><\/div>\n

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Examining Wilmot\u2019s manuscripts indeed enabled me to understand more fully how the exchange of gifts between her and Dashkova helped facilitate an alliance. For example, in an entry dated December 2, 1803, Wilmot relates how \u201cToday the P gave me a little medal of the statue of Peter the Great\u201d and told her the story of his reign.[4]\u00a0 An entry of April 4, 1804 recounts the gift of \u201ca snuffbox which belonged to the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, Princess Daschkaw\u2019s godmother.\u201d[5]\u00a0 Connected to prominent Russian leaders, the objects enhance Wilmot\u2019s understanding of the country and its imperial power.\u00a0 An entry from December 28, 1804 indicates that the Princess desires a mutual alliance when she gives Wilmot a shawl she received from Alexander I in exchange for her English one.[6] \u00a0As Katrina O\u2019Loughlin points out, these sentimental items are emblematic of women\u2019s sociability, allowing them to exhibit their feelings for one another.[7]\u00a0 The journals thus show how the material objects that strengthen Wilmot and Dashkova\u2019s personal friendship reinforce the political ties between their countries as well.<\/p>\n

My research on Wilmot\u2019s work also revealed unexpected connections between Britain, Russia, and the East. Russia attempted to bolster its national image by identifying with Western nations such as Britain, but also through its domination of the East.\u00a0 This too occurred through material culture.\u00a0 In a July 23, 1803 entry, Wilmot recounts viewing \u201cspecimens of the curiosities of different countrys\u201d like India, Turkey, and China at the Princess\u2019 Academy in St. Petersburg.[8]\u00a0 Confiscated and placed in a museum, these objects indicate the political and cultural power Russia exerted over Eastern countries.\u00a0 Dashkova also shares such objects with Wilmot, who notes in a January 3, 1806 entry, \u201cThe Princess has been rummaging today, and has rooted out a million things, from every quarter of the globe, but particularly from China.\u00a0 She has given us pagodas, a musical instrument, purse, boxes, etc.\u201d[9]\u00a0 Giving Chinese objects to Wilmot may be another way in which Dashkova hopes to convince Britain that Russia would prove to be a powerful political ally. \u00a0However, the goods may also suggest that Russia could help Britain partake in prosperous trade with the East.\u00a0 British attempts to establish a trading port in China had been unsuccessful, and they eagerly sought ways to fulfill the consumer demand at home for Eastern luxuries. \u00a0Regardless, the collection and exchange of these objects reveal both Russia and Britain\u2019s desires to strengthen their empires and redefine themselves as global nations.<\/p>\n

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Traveling case (By permission of the Royal Irish Academy \u00a9 RIA)<\/p><\/div>\n

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Although virtually unknown in literary studies today, Martha Wilmot\u2019s work makes a significant contribution to our understanding of women writers and their involvement abroad during the Romantic period. The Wilmot-Dashkova Collection also contains Catherine Wilmot\u2019s own journal and letters of her stay in Russia, which provide a more critical view of Russian cultural and political practices, and letters from her 1801-1803 journey to France and Italy, which offer an inside look at Napoleon\u2019s empire.\u00a0 While Martha Wilmot chose not to publish her journals, her portable writing case, also preserved in the archive, suggests that she considered herself a legitimate travel writer. The collection would appeal to scholars interested in the intersection of gender, politics, and material culture in the Napoleonic period. With its rare insights into relations between East and West, it would also appeal to those with an interest in global Romanticism.<\/p>\n

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– by Pamela Buck<\/p>\n

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[1] I thank Sacred Heart University for supporting this project through a University Research and Creativity Grant.<\/p>\n

[2] Martha Wilmot, The Russian Journals of Martha and Catherine Wilmot, <\/em>eds. Edith Londonderry and H. M. Hyde (London: Macmillan, 1934).<\/p>\n

[3] Pamela Buck, \u201cFrom Russia with Love: Souvenirs and Political Alliance in Martha Wilmot\u2019s The<\/em> Russian Journals,<\/em>\u201d in Eighteenth-Century Thing Theory in a Global Context: From Consumerism to Celebrity Culture<\/em>, eds. Ileana Baird and Christina Ionescu (Basingstoke: Ashgate Publishing, 2013), 133-48.<\/p>\n

[4] Martha Wilmot, \u201cJournal of stay in Russia\u201d (12 L 17), 151.<\/p>\n

[5] Ibid., (12 L 18), 103.<\/p>\n

[6] Ibid., 292.<\/p>\n

[7] Katrina O\u2019Loughlin, \u201c\u2018Your Russian Mother\u2019: Friendship and Global Relations in the Dashkova Archive\u201d (presentation, North American Society for the Study of Romanticism Conference, Tokyo, Japan, June 13-15, 2014).<\/p>\n

[8] Martha Wilmot, \u201cJournal of stay in Russia\u201d (12 L 17), 68.<\/p>\n

[9] Wilmot, \u201cJournal\u201d (12 L 20), 8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today we welcome Dr Pamela Buck to the BARS blog. Pamela is an Associate Professor of English at Sacred Heart University. Her research focuses on British women writers and material… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1817"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1826,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817\/revisions\/1826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}